Sidebar: Quick Takes (v60)

In my Quick Takes post yesterday, I expressed concern over the new NCAA Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) program, which allows college athletes to be paid directly by corporations through sponsorships and whatnot. I proposed a different solution to paying athletes for the work they do for their schools - an equally imperfect solution, truth be told, but one that's more equitable, in my eyes. 

The announcement of these changes came at the same time as a legendary figure in high school lacrosse, locally and nationally, did an interview with a local media outlet here in my neck of the woods. The interview wasn't about the NIL changes, but it touched on some of the things that I can see being exacerbated by them. 

Retired West Genesee Coach Mike Messere talked with Lindsey Kramer of Syracuse.com/The Post Standard. Messere retired three years ago, after coaching the Wildcats to 15 state championships and 30 conference championships in his 40-odd-year career. By all accounts, he was a tough and demanding coach; his retirement was accompanied by scathing comments about his team's performance in their 2018 state championship loss, after all. 

The impetus for the interview was news that the coaches for both the West Genny boys and girls teams had stepped down. As Kramer notes in the interview, Messere "has clearly fought off the mellowing impacts of time and distance."

Among other things, he said "It's a tough time right now to be a coach or a teacher. Everything's changing and it's not for the best." In part, he points to discipline, and parents, and demands on the kids.

The parents want the kid to be more free to do their thing. Score, and be fancy, and shine, and make a show of themselves and stuff like that... They want their kid to get a scholarship so they’ve got to be in a certain spot, they’ve got to play a certain way. Before, years ago when they didn’t know much about the game of lacrosse it was a lot better. They couldn’t say too much. But now they learn the word “faceoff” and they think they know it all. They have their ideas, too.

Ours was tried and proven and true the way we were doing it. But it takes discipline, learning a lot of basic skills. Nothing fancy. They’re not jumping up and down and spinning around and making a show of yourself. And the parents don’t like that. They want their kid to do all that stuff to get attention.

And there's more - he's definitely not shy. In some respects, it sounds like he ran his program the way Steinbrenner ran the Yankees. 

The kind of quitting, how do I explain it? They gave up on the West Genny way. Kids weren’t keeping their socks up; they were kicking them down. All the stuff that made you that little bit, not that it made you a better player. It made you different than the other kids. A little more special. I don’t know if they got that or understood that. When they see you come, they know who you are, and you’re something special just by the looks of those socks. It’s a discipline thing. Everybody dresses the same, we play the same, everybody respects everybody else the same way.

And when you think of NIL, can you see what Messere's talking about coming into play? I sure can.

Look at me! I'm the funny socks guy, and I'm getting $1oK for that! Check out my on Insta and TikTok - I'm getting paid for clicks! My team? Losing record, but I'm getting paid! Woo hoo, look at me!

In a lot of ways, I agree with Messere on the importance of team, discipline, and uniformity, especially before the kids get into college. That is not the way of the world now, with competitive teams - travel teams - for kids as young as five or six in some sports. That's a lot of years to learn how to wear your socks just right to get noticed. I've seen myself how kids even that young are being encouraged by parents to star as individuals, rather than as team players.

In addition to being ripe for encouraging selfish behavior on the part of the kids (and their parents) the NIL program also seems ripe for a lot of other stuff, such as illegal payments to players before they get into college, payments to families or coaches to nudge their kids to choose this sponsorship deal over that one, and so on. You know: all the stuff the NCAA has been punishing for years, and which colleges are sometimes willing to turn a blind eye to, if it helps them get a high-powered coach who can recruit great players and bring in the bucks. 

With the new rules, will we eventually see a game where the players are all decked out like NASCAR drivers, proudly touting their sponsors, with maybe a little space saved for their team's name? 

I'm old - or, at least, old school. Shine through your play, not your 'style.' Be part of a unit, not an attention-grabber. Play for the team, not for individual glory. Pull up your socks. Tell your Mom and Dad to take a seat.

Oh - and get off my lawn.

Quick Takes (v60): The Times Are Surely Changing

Happy pay day, college athletes! Get your money while you're hot!

I'm torn on the whole Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) changes in college athletics. New NIL rules allowing student-athletes to profit off their 'brand' through sponsorships or corporate partnerships went into effect yesterday.

The NCAA adopted what they're calling an interim NIL policy, after several states passed legislation allowing this kind of benefit for athletes. According to NCAA president Mark Emmert,

This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image, and likeness opportunities. With the variety of state laws adopted across the country, we will continue to work with Congress to develop a solution that will provide clarity on a national level. The current environment — both legal and legislative — prevents us from providing a more permanent solution and the level of detail student-athletes deserve.

Some student-athletes jumped into NIL deals right away; for example, here's the story of Hanna and Haley Cavinder, twin basketball players for Fresno State. They'll be part of a national campaign for Boost Mobile - a company that's going whole-hog on deals with college stars. CEO Stephen Stokols explains that it's not just national deals, there's more.

... he's interested in the appeal that many college athletes have on a local level. He said deals could range from annual contracts worth large sums of money to in-kind deals where Boost provides athletes with free cellphones and service plans in exchange for promoting the company on social media.

A lot of these guys are local heroes... We think it's a big opportunity to get regional and local with relevant names in those markets. ...We want to be one of the biggest companies embracing [the college-athlete marketplace] early. We hope to play a role in helping to shape it. There is a lot of gray area that will hopefully be more defined a year from now.

In my neck of the woods, Syracuse University has rolled out a new program, called ACCELERATE, for kids. The program expands upon one started last year, which provided "every student-athlete with real-time multimedia content access from Syracuse Athletics' communications and creative services teams" which they could share on social media. Now, 

...Syracuse Athletics will offer an intensive bootcamp to all student-athletes beginning in September 2021. This bootcamp will allow for subject matter experts from Syracuse University and the corporate world to deliver practical knowledge to student-athletes on entrepreneurship, brand building, creating a business, finance, accounting, contracts, and agents. The bootcamp sessions will help student-athletes further develop their own personal brands and prepare them for the real-world implications of starting their own personal business.

Other schools will surely offer similar programs, which is great for the athletes. All of them - whether they're in school primarily to enhance their brand and create opportunities to go to the next level, or if they're in school to get a degree and move on to a career outside athletics, this is knowledge that will help.

And, good for the kids to have the chance to make money, instead of their schools making money off them. And let's not forget the coaches, too, some of whom are raking in millions in salary, shoe-and-apparel deals, and other sponsorships. That the student-athletes are the only ones not making money for their services is wrong, and has been for a long time. 

But the NCAA's insistence on prohibiting the kids to be paid for the work they put in - often a full work-week (or more) during the season - in order to preserve the 'amateur' status of the kids? That's nuts. 

I'd rather see all the athletes, in both revenue-earning and non-revenue earning sports, get a salary for the hours they put in, instead of giving them free reign to rake in outside money. And they'd get paid for all their time - games, at practice, in the weight room, traveling, watching film - the whole nine yards, as it were. A salary would ensure that all students on a team, whether they get a lot of playing time or not, will benefit. 

And how about some revenue sharing? Could a small percentage of conference money, TV revenue, ticket income, and the like could be divided up among all athletes, based on some formula that people smarter than me could develop? I bet it could.

An added benefit? With athletes being paid by the school, not by corporate interests, you won't see players competing against each other for the same NIL sponsorships, or worse, bad blood spilling over onto the field if one player gets a better deal than a teammate. 

I don't know what the perfect solution is, but there are good ways to do things, and bad ones. This NIL thing seems like a bad way to do a good thing.